Margarita Recipes

A Smokin’ Margarita & A Smokin’ Maria

This is Page 2 of a three-page article with popular Latin cocktail recipes; here, a Smokin’ Margarita and Smokin’ Maria. The Smokin’ Maria is a Bloody Mary made with tequila instead of vodka. Click on the black links below to visit other pages.

The Difference Between Tequila & Mezcal

Some people think they are the same spirit, but they are as differentiated by the production process and taste as American, Canadian, Irish and Scotch whiskeys.

While both spirits derive from varieties of the agave plant (known in the indigenous Nahuatl language as mexcalmetl), Tequila is made from only agave tequilana Weber, the blue agave variety. Mezcal can be made from five different varieties of agave.

Tequila is double-distilled (a few top brands are triple-distilled to remove the maximum amount of impurities), while mezcal is often only distilled once.

Most mezcal is made in the Mexican state of Oaxaca; Tequila is produced in the northwestern state of Jalisco and a few nearby areas. Almost every village in the state of Oaxaca has its producers of local mezcal. Rare mezcals that are difficult to produce are made in tiny quantities in remote villages.

Agave. Photo courtesy of Del Maguey mezcal.

A historical note: The Spanish Conquistadors learned the art of distillation from the Moors in 800 A.D., and Cortez and his troops brought the technology to Mexico in 1519. Shortly thereafter, the Aztecs began to distill agave into mezcal. Agave is not a cactus: It is a succulent, and was once classified in the same family with lily and aloe. Today it is classified in its own family, Agavaceae, which consists of more than 400 species.